


Hot Dish

by superstringtheory



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background Samtasha, Belly Kink, Belly Rubs, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky breaks his hip because he's an old man, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Slash, Protective Steve Rogers, Sick Bucky Barnes, Sick Character, Sickfic, Slow Burn, Steve makes lots of casseroles, Stucky - Freeform, Stuffing, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, chub kink, chubby!bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 10:37:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7681066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstringtheory/pseuds/superstringtheory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky breaks his hip sledding, because he's such an old man. Steve takes it upon himself to make him lots of comfort hot dishes and lasagnas and Bucky takes it upon himself to eat them. In increasing quantities. Steve likes watching Bucky eat. Bucky likes eating what Steve's made. Slow burn, realization, then sexytimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Dish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wreckingthefinite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckingthefinite/gifts).



> wreckingthefinite requested fic where Bucky gets injured and Steve takes care of him, mostly by cooking for him and feeding him. By the time Bucky's recovered, his jeans don't fit anymore. 
> 
> Many thanks to greyskygirl for letting me flail around about this with her.

_ “Oh my god,” Sam says. “You broke your hip. You are such an old man.”  _

_ “It’s not funny,” Steve says, but the corner of his mouth keeps twitching and he keeps clearing his throat very obviously.  _

_ “I hate you all,” Bucky growls, and Natasha pats his non-injured leg under the hospital blanket. _

_ “It’s okay, Bucky, it happens to a lot of people your age.”  _

_ It’s true. Plenty of people in Bucky’s WWII-vet-demographic break their hips. However, they aren’t recovered ex-assassin supersoldiers, and probably don’t do so while sledding with their fellow supersoldier BFF and his assassin pals. Probably.  _

_ “Don’t worry, Buck.” Steve tucks Bucky’s hair behind his ears for him. “I’ll take good care of you.”  _

_ In response, Bucky grimaces and mashes down the nurse call button.  _

_ Steve’s eyebrows fly up. “Are you having more pain, Bucky?”  _

_ “No.”  _

_ “What is it, then? Do you need something?” Steve’s rubbing Bucky’s shoulder now and it almost makes him feel bad, but he’s just so annoyed and miserable and bedridden that he can’t quite manage it.  _

_ “Yeah, I need her to get the three of you out of here.”  _

_ Steve’s mouth turns into a small, hurt ‘o’, then, and THEN Bucky actually feels bad. Although once the nurse has chivvied his friends out of the room, he can actually relax a little bit. Plus, he’s sure that Steve is sitting right outside the door and once he’s had a few moments to himself, Bucky’ll call Steve right back in and let him get on with the coddling he’s obviously so desperate to do. _

 

~~~~~

 

Steve’s making Bucky stay with him in his apartment in the Avengers Tower. Tony’s off “finding himself” or whatever on some sort of lavishly expensive Amazonian river expedition, accompanied by Wanda and Vision-- having briefly experienced humidity with his metal arm, Bucky doesn’t even want to think about the effects of an equatorial rainforest on a metal body. 

Even if there’s a tentative truce now between the Avengers, between Tony and Steve, and subsequently, Tony and Bucky… Bucky’s still not entirely comfortable being in this building. 

Still, it was his choice. The doctors wanted him to stay overnight in the hospital again, and he just couldn’t. He’d begged Steve to let him sign himself out AMA, and Steve had hemmed and hawed and eventually caved in when Bucky agreed to come and stay in the Tower and let Steve take care of him during his convalescence. 

Which, according to the doctors, is not going to be a cakewalk. Or any type of walk. At all. At least for a while. Meaning six weeks. Perhaps four, given Bucky’s supersoldier serum-- which, Bucky had ruefully explained, did a much better job of quickly healing flesh wounds rather than bone. The Winter Soldier just had to be able to make it back to his cryo chamber after battle; he couldn’t do that with a torn aorta or a cut Achilles, but he could certainly do it with the likes of a broken arm, and he had. Bone could be knit over weeks in a semiconscious light frost, and once he was healed and scarless, they could wipe him and deep freeze him again. 

“You need anything, Buck?” Steve calls from the kitchen, as if Bucky, mired in a veritable island of Steve’s overzealous caretaking efforts, could want for anything. 

Books of crossword puzzles. Sudoku. Several Robert Heinlein paperbacks. A Gameboy with Pokémon Leaf Green (Bucky’s starter is Bulbasaur, get over it). The television remote. Netflix. A blanket. Another blanket. A mug of lukewarm tea. A glass of lukewarm water with a straw. Homemade chocolate chip cookies (which Steve had baked himself while Bucky had fallen asleep in the middle of a rerun of the 1970s Family Feud, the one with all the lip kissing). 

“No,” Bucky calls while he eats another cookie. Steve is actually a pretty good cook. From the beeping of the oven, it sounds like Steve has also made dinner for the two of them. It's very sweet, it really is, but a big part of Bucky feels guilty that Steve thinks that he has to take care of him like this. Ever since he thawed out from being an assassin ice pop, Steve’s been obliged to run around the world after him and cut ties with friends just to keep the flame of Bucky's presumed innocence burning.

 

~~~~~

 

Bucky knows that he’s not innocent. He’s not guilty, either, but somewhere in-between. He’s still musing on this when Steve appears from the kitchen. 

“How’s your pain?” Steve sets a pan of lasagna down on a trivet already waiting on the coffee table, and starts cutting Bucky a generous slice. 

“Two.” 

“You always say that. What’s it really?” Steve balances a fork on the edge of a plate too-full of lasagna and sets it on the table tray across Bucky’s lap. 

“Two.” 

“You’re impossible.” 

Bucky talks around a huge bite of lasagna. “I’m two.” 

“I know.” Steve sits on the couch next to Bucky, being careful not to jostle him. 

“And stop watching me eat, it's creepy.” Bucky swallows another large bite, already forking up the next one.

 

~~~~~

 

Bucky eats a solid third of the lasagna, then leans back, panting a little, hiccuping and then patting his stomach, which is rounding out from his t-shirt more than Steve remembers it doing before the whole broken hip thing. 

“Stop staring at me, you pervert,” Bucky says, and Steve jumps. “I’m fine, just ate a little fast. Your cooking’s too good, I can’t stop.” 

Steve almost comes in his pants.

 

~~~~~

 

Steve’s in hell. Actually. In. Hell. Who’d have thought, having his best friend back from the undead would be such torture. 

Just now, as he watches, Bucky is tonguing ice cream off of a spoon in a way that looks truly obscene. Steve has to swallow hard and suddenly find a throw pillow to casually put on his lap. Poor Bucky, just sitting there innocently eating his rocky road and here Steve is, getting a goddamn hard-on from the way a little hint of stomach yearns at the space between the hem of Bucky’s t-shirt and the waistband of his sweatpants. 

Steve’s not paying any attention to whatever’s on television now, some sort of show where people in workout clothing run and jump and fall into water, all while being timed. He’s just staring blankly at the screen, when Bucky taps his spoon on the side of his bowl and Steve starts. 

“What?” 

“Earth to Steve, didn’t know you were that into the ninja warrior stuff.” 

Steve swallows again. “Sorry, Buck. I was… distracted.” 

Bucky taps his spoon on the side of the bowl again. “We have any more of this? ‘S good.” 

Steve jumps up and practically runs to the kitchen before Bucky can see his (admittedly not small) issue. 

“I’ve already got a bowl, Steve,” Bucky says, but Steve continues roughly opening the silverware drawer and banging cabinets. 

“It’s okay, Buck, I’m already getting a new one.” Steve is determinedly  _ not _ thinking about how Bucky’s already eaten a huge bowl of ice cream, on top of his dinner of two large helpings of the new chicken mushroom casserole Steve had made. 

Biting his tongue, Steve considers the packed dish of ice cream. Fuck it, in for a calorie, in for five hundred. He adds a brownie (baked yesterday) to the dish and pushes it down with a spoon. 

Bucky’s eyes light up when Steve sets the dish on his lap. “Geez, Steve.” He’s digging in immediately, and Steve’s cock twitches. He’s  _ not _ thinking about the sweet way Bucky will be panting around that spoon by the time he’s nearing the bottom of that dish, or patting the taut sides of his belly like an errant cat. He’s not he’s not he’s-- 

“I’m going to go take a shower,” Steve blurts, and then bolts. He gets himself off hard and fast to the mental image of Bucky taking in his cock like that ice cream spoon, and he has to bite his tongue to keep himself from moaning Bucky’s name. 

Hell. The entrance to Hell is in Avengers Tower, New York City. Who knew?

 

~~~~~

 

Bucky is in heaven. Well, a very torturous heaven, or possibly purgatory. A heaven where he's broken his hip like an old man and where his sinfully gorgeous best pal trots around their shared apartment without a shirt on a good majority of the time. Said gorgeous bestie also feels so guilty over this ill-fated sledding accident that he's been waiting on Bucky hand and foot, baking up a storm, cooking elaborate meals. He’s done all but spell out I’M SORRY and IT WAS MY FAULT in alphabet soup. (Which is, yes, something Steve had made for him, with thickly buttered slices of warm, homemade bread and crisp apple pie for dessert.) 

Bucky knows it’s not just about the hip. It’s also about the whole train thing, and the being-forced-to-be-an-assassin thing. And the freezing thing. Mostly about that. 

This is probably why Steve seems to feel some innate need to feed Bucky warm things- soups, casseroles, freshly baked pastries… the list goes on. He doesn’t want Bucky to feel cold any more. He wants him to feel warmed from the inside, and Jesus,  _ that  _ kind of internal warming is not the kind Bucky should be imagining with Steve. 

But he does anyway.

 

~~~~~

 

By the end of week two of Bucky’s recovery, Bucky can carefully crutch around the apartment, as long as he doesn’t put much weight on his injured leg. He’s been given physical therapy exercises to do, which Sam comes over to supervise (along with Nat, ostensibly, but thus far as far as Bucky can tell, Nat’s mostly there to sprawl on the couch and read Bucky’s abandoned paperbacks (dogearing the pages!!) and stare at Sam’s ass in tight track pants when she thinks Bucky’s not looking. Bucky’s got Nat’s number, that’s for sure). 

It’s a Friday, and Bucky sees the upcoming weekend as his reprieve from PT and potentially from Steve’s (somewhat overbearing at times) caretaking. Unfortunately, this weekend also marks the time when he’s supposed to wane off of his stronger pain meds completely, and Steve feels himself completely in charge of this particular activity. Bucky’s metabolism being what it is (i.e., able to quickly metabolize medications and neutralize toxins but slowly absorb nutrients- all the better for keeping a non-critically injured Soldier out in the field), Steve has created a chart for the different dosages Bucky will be receiving over the weekend, and at what times. Bucky, upon being handed a freshly printed copy of this schedule, is not delighted. 

“You might feel kind of shitty for a little bit,” Steve tells him, “but you’ll probably get over it a lot faster than a normal person. And”-- Steve pauses to let a grin light up his face, almost like he’s got a Christmas bulb tucked away behind those teeth somewhere-- “I’m going to make you the best homemade pasta ever, so you won’t even notice. Okay?” 

Bucky can’t really say anything but “okay” in response to that. And in response to the “How’re you doing?”-s called from the kitchen, where Steve seems to be having  _ quite the time _ with the pasta-making Kitchen Aid attachment. 

Even though by mid-afternoon on Saturday, he’s feeling pretty far from “okay.”

 

~~~~~

 

Bucky’s sweaty and shaky and can't even track along with an episode of Wheel of Fortune. He tries to sleep, but can't stop shivering despite his two blankets and the tea Steve's continuing to force on him. 

Luckily, this phase of the tapering off only lasts through the afternoon, by which time Steve finally emerges from the kitchen bedecked in an actual apron and light dusting of flour. 

“Pasta’s boiling on the stove!” He announces cheerily, and Bucky huffs. Unluckily, the grouchy portion of the weekend has arrived, and is definitely settling in to stay the night. 

“What is this, again?” Bucky asks, poking his fork at his plate. 

“It’s fettuccine alfredo. Homemade. From scratch.” Steve looks a little hurt. 

“... Right.” Well, it’s certainly alfredo, and it’s certainly pasta… however, Bucky’s not really sure that fettuccine noodles are supposed to look this thick and lumpy. He honestly feels a little queasy and headachy and the prospect of eating this is really not helping his mood. He just wants some soup or something, is that too much to ask for an invalid? 

It’s flavorful, Bucky can say that much for it. The flavors are good. The texture… not so much. Steve takes note of Bucky’s carefully controlled expression.

“You don’t like it.” 

“No, it’s fine. I like it fine.” Bucky resolutely forks another mouthful, bigger this time. 

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it, Buck.” 

For some reason, this remark annoys Bucky even more-- Steve made this pasta for him, Steve, who feels like he has to take care of Bucky now in some kind of decades-delayed role reversal, and goddamn if Bucky isn’t going to eat every. Single. Bite. 

He’s almost wheezing by the end, four plates later, and Steve looks a little pained. 

“Glad you, uh, liked it, Buck.” 

“Didn’t like it. Ate it.” Bucky scrapes the last bit of sauce off of his plate and then lets his fork clatter onto the coffee table. He groans and palms the side of his belly. “Fuck.” 

“Are you…” Steve trails off, and swallows, looking weirdly guilty. “Are you all right, Buck?” 

Bucky palpates his gut, hisses. “What does it look like?” He rubs small, rough circles into the crest of his belly. “Like I ate too much and gave myself a stomachache? Because that’s what fuckin’ happened.” He stares Steve down, as if challenging him. 

Steve holds his gaze momentarily and then drops it, fiddling with the remote, flipping through channels far too quickly to discern what they might be. 

After a few minutes of this uncomfortable mostly-silence, Steve gets up and collects Bucky’s empty plate. He stands in front of Bucky for a bit, watching as Bucky winces, his one hand continuing its massage. 

“Are you--” Steve stops. “Do you need--” the hand not holding Bucky’s plate twitches, like he wants to reach out and take over the belly-rubbing duties. 

“What? Do I need you to rub my gut because I can’t control myself?” Bucky spits. “I think you’ve done enough already, don’t you?”

It comes out a lot harsher than he meant, really, and no matter how shitty he feels and how frustrated he is to be couched, this momentary, red-hot gleam of satisfied frustration is hardly worth the tight, hurt look on Steve’s face when he says, “Night, Buck,” and then the sound of a plate being put in the dishwasher, followed by the firm  _ snick _ of Steve’s bedroom door closing. 

Well, fuck.

 

~~~~~

 

The next morning, Bucky wakes on the couch to a food hangover and an empty apartment. A sticky note on top of the remote informs him that Sam and Natasha will arrive around 12. It also reminds him to drink water. The note is signed “S.R.”, as if Bucky wouldn't know that handwriting anywhere. It makes his heart pang (although that could also be the indigestion). 

Bucky checks the clock. It’s 10:30am, meaning Steve could have been gone for hours. He crutches to the bathroom and the kitchen and then back to the couch. He drinks several large glasses of water and tries not to think about how much he’s fucked up. 

Sam and Nat arrive promptly at noon, while Bucky is getting himself yet another glass of water, propping the crutch and himself up by leaning back against the granite countertop. Everything in the kitchen gleams and even the dishwasher is empty; the only evidence of Steve’s (very heartfelt) pasta-making is the remaining bit of tenderness in Bucky’s belly. 

When Natasha steps into the kitchen and sees Bucky, she gives him a long, slow clap. 

“Nicely done, Barnes,” she says. “Haven’t seen Steve that upset in a while.” She takes the opportunity to hop up on the counter and sit next to Bucky’s elbow. 

“Be nice, Nat,” Sam says in a warning tone, and Natasha just swings her legs. 

“Make me.” She smirks back at Sam, and there seems to be some subtext going on here that Bucky isn’t totally aware of. Or, well. 

“Did you two finally fuck? I’m asking for a friend.” (Another pang. Steve’s just  _ dying  _ for Sam and Nat to finally admit that they have feelings for each other. Bucky’s just glad that maybe now Nat will finally stop eye-fucking Sam’s-- admittedly excellent-- ass during his PT sessions.)

Sam holds up a hand. “We didn't fuck, we made love. But yes. It happened. And it’s going to happen again. Soon.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Sooner if you get him his lunch.” She nods at Bucky, and Sam literally hops to, which would’ve definitely made Bucky laugh if he didn’t still feel so terrible about what he’d said to Steve.

 

~~~~~

 

It turns out that Steve isn’t mad enough to let Bucky possibly, potentially, maybe go without a home-cooked meal. (Or at the very least, a home slapped-together sandwich.) 

While eating said sandwich, Bucky is treated to a long-winded verbal treatise by Sam about how much Steve  _ cares _ about him, all while Natasha watches him with bright eyes and a knowing look. 

Bucky painstakingly composes an apology text message on Sam’s phone and sends it off into the void. 

“Good man,” Sam says, and Natasha winks at him. Bucky feels his face heat up and stay that way, especially when Sam crows, “He’s typing, he’s typing!” and thrusts the phone back in Bucky’s face to that he can see the little blue dots. 

Hopeful, annoying little blue dots, which start, and then stop. And then go on for a minute, and then stop again. 

“He stopped typing,” Bucky says, a little more woefully than he’d expected. 

Natasha hops up and goes to the door, which she opens with a flourish. Steve’s standing just outside the doorway, peering at his phone. 

“Don’t worry,” Nat tells him sardonically. “He was just downstairs the whole time.” 

Bucky feels himself flush again, and looks down at his lap, at his socked foot propped up on the coffee table. At the little rounded press of his gut against the waistband of his sweatpants.

“Hey,” Steve says, and Bucky swallows hard. 

“Hey.” 

Natasha stands on tiptoe to peck Steve on the cheek. “We’re going,” she tells him.

“To have sex,” Sam chimes in, almost running Steve over in his hurry to get to the door. Natasha heaves a put-upon sigh, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

“Have fun kissing and making up, you two,” Nat calls over her shoulder, Sam pulling her by the elbow. This time it’s Steve who’s blushing bright red.

 

~~~~~

 

“So,” Steve says finally, a little too cheerily, not quite meeting Bucky’s eyes. “Did you have lunch? Are you hungry?” 

Food again. It seems to be Steve’s default lately-- Bucky’s in pain, bring him food. Bucky’s bored, feed him. Bucky’s grouchy, shut him up with something to eat. 

Steve finally makes eye contact, and Bucky pauses for a moment. “Yeah,” he says. “I could eat.”

 

~~~~~

 

Instead of remaining marooned on the couch like usual, this time Bucky crutches along into the kitchen with Steve. He pulls out a dining room chair and makes to sit in it heavily, and suddenly Steve’s there at his elbow, easing him down, pulling out another chair and carefully arranging Bucky’s leg. As he’s doing this, his hand brushes against Bucky’s belly for a moment- and stays just a moment longer than necessary. This touch has Bucky’s pulse racing, heart beating loud in his ears. He’s imagining what it’d be like to ask Steve to touch him when he’s glutted on one of Steve’s care-infused hot dishes. He has to bite his tongue hard and remind himself that he’s only just fixed his latest fuck up with Steve and he definitely wouldn’t want to start another by being the weirdo who got a boner after his best friend helped him into a chair. 

“Grilled cheese all right?” Steve’s asking, and Bucky blinks. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Grilled cheese is great.” 

And is it ever-- Steve’s grilled cheese involves no less than four types of cheeses, various spreads and big green olives toothpicked into the top when served. 

He serves Bucky three of these sandwiches, right in a row, starting to make the next one when Bucky’s only partway through the previous. 

“Calcium’s good for healing your hip,” Steve tells him, serving up the last grilled cheese and pouring Bucky a big glass of whole milk. Bucky drains the glass in one and then burps. 

“Full,” he says, gently rubbing the top of his belly. 

“Too full for dessert?” Steve’s already at the freezer, pulling out a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. 

Bucky sighs, looks down at his belly. He’s full, yes, but is he too full to eat what Steve is offering? (Never.) 

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky says. “Bring it over.”

 

~~~~~

 

This goes on for two or three days-- Steve continues to feed Bucky decadent things, bring him second and third servings, feed him so much that Bucky feels like he’s going to pop, like Steve’s challenging him, to see when he’ll say uncle. 

At the end of these feeding frenzies (because what else are they, even if by the end Bucky’s eating so slowly, cautiously chewing and swallowing, palming his gut, rubbing in unsuccessful taming motions), Steve’s gaze seems locked on Bucky’s heavy belly like Bucky’s been chowing down on iron filings and he’s got a magnet behind his eyes. Each night, Steve helps Bucky crutch to his bedroom, watching him inscrutably as Bucky heaves himself into bed, t-shirt flashing a slice of stuffed belly. 

Each night, Steve says, “Night, Buck,” and closes the door quietly, and each night Bucky wishes he’d asked him to stay as he fumbles under the covers, struggling with one hand and his too-full belly in the way. 

_ Tomorrow _ , Bucky thinks to himself as he falls asleep,  _ tomorrow I’m going to do something about this _ .

 

~~~~~

 

Bucky wakes up feeling like shit. His throat feels raw, sandpapery, and swallowing makes him wince. Breathing in deeply also makes him cough, so that’s a fun addition. The bathroom mirror reveals pallor, dark smudges under his eyes, and a light pink tinge to his cheeks. 

Operation: Seduce Steve is off to a great start. 

Bucky does his best to seem normal, like his throat isn’t killing him and his thoughts don’t feel paper-thin and wavery, grasping at straws just to string a sentence together. He’s up even before Steve, and his unquiet tea-making must rouse Steve, because he appears in the kitchen, hair adorably sleep-rumpled and in a t-shirt so tight it makes Bucky feel dizzy. (Or maybe that’s the fever. Either way, it’s a pretty great t-shirt, but not so easy to look at this early in the morning.) 

It’s not so easy to make tea one-handed and functionally one-legged, either, so Steve takes pity on him and says, “Here, let me get it,” and the hard pecs enveloped by that tight shirt (favorite. shirt. ever) brush briefly against Bucky’s back, and he shivers. Bucky crutches slowly back to the couch and tries to arrange his face into a smile when Steve brings his tea a few moments later. 

Steve, despite the unkempt hair and bare feet, seems to be completely with it, even this early. He gives Bucky a critical look as he sets the steaming mug of tea down on the coffee table. 

“You're looking a little flushed, Buck. You feeling okay?”

Bucky swallows, then winces and looks a little guilty. “... Yes?” 

Steve laughs. “You sure about that?” 

“Final answer, Regis.” Bucky wrecks his little halfhearted charade with a chesty cough. 

Steve rolls his eyes. “God, I've really been letting you watch way too much daytime television.” He leans over and feels Bucky’s face and neck with the back of his giant hand, frowns. “You feel pretty warm, there, Buck.” 

Bucky closes his eyes and breathes out. If only Steve would say the words,  _ God, you’re so hot, Bucky _ , and touch him  _ all over _ instead of just on his face. If only Steve weren’t just checking for indicators of illness and were over here, getting all up in Bucky’s personal space because he wanted Bucky to divest him of that tight, tight t-shirt. 

If only. 

Too soon, Steve’s leaning back, nudging the mug of tea a little closer to Bucky. “Drink your tea,” he says. “I”ll go get your breakfast.”

 

~~~~~

 

Bucky dozes off after breakfast, after Steve had insisted he eat at least two pancakes and several pieces of bacon (“Protein,” Steve had said, “It’s good for you.” Bucky’s not entirely sure one can claim this of bacon, but whatever, it’s not like he’s keeping kosher or counting calories or anything). Steve had also insisted on Advil and another mug of tea, but Bucky falls asleep before he’s finished it. 

When he wakes, he feels slightly less muzzy, but there’s a persistent tickle in the back of his throat and an ache setting up shop behind his sternum. At least his nose isn’t stuffy, so he can smell that Steve is cooking in the kitchen (as per usual). He coughs and then sips at cold tea, and Steve pokes his head into the living room, wearing that silly apron over the t-shirt and some sweatpants that are as tight in the glutes as the shirt is in the pecs. Jesus. Give a man a little warning. 

Bucky coughs again, and Steve comes closer. “Making you a casserole,” he tells Bucky. “You need some good home-cooked food.” 

As he coughs, Bucky can feel his gut jiggle a little, so he’s pretty sure that another huge home-cooked meal is  _ not _ something he really needs. 

“It’ll be ready in just a bit,” Steve continues. “Are you feeling any better? Sounds like your throat hurts.” He winces sympathetically as Bucky clears his throat. 

“S’a little better,” Bucky manages, sipping a little more tea, and Steve looks like he’s about to come put his hands on Bucky again but then the timer in the kitchen buzzes, and he jumps and runs to take the casserole out of the oven. 

Operation: Seduce Steve is a little off on the timing, that’s for damn sure.

 

~~~~~

 

“I thought you were supposed to starve a fever. Y’know, feed a cold and all that?” Bucky says as he peers down at the ungodly amount of casserole Steve has served him. 

“Nah. Old wives’ tale. Should really be, ‘feed a cold, feed a fever.’” Steve grins at him. “So eat up, you. Your body needs all those extra calories to help you get better.” 

Bucky’s not really hungry, not now- he mostly just wants to lie down and keep sleeping- but at least eating distracts him from the twinges of pain in his hip and his general achiness and malaise. 

By the time he’s finished the second plate (Steve had insisted), he’s definitely not hungry, and he falls asleep again on the couch, this time with Steve next to him, flipping through channels with the t.v. volume on low. 

When he wakes up this time, it’s late afternoon and Steve’s hands are on his face again, his mouth pinched in concern. 

“I’m going to go get the thermometer, Buck, you’re really hot.” 

At Steve’s words, a slight zing of pleasure registers in Bucky’s chest, but the rest of him feels too terrible to allow him to dwell on it. 

“One-oh-three,” Steve reads out, taking the thermometer from Bucky’s mouth. “You must feel terrible.” Steve’s knee is poking hard into Bucky’s thigh, and then Steve’s smoothing his hair back, tucking it behind his ear, and it feels so good that Bucky almost moans. 

“Should take you to bed,” Steve murmurs, almost like he can’t help it, and then blushes bright red. “ _ Put _ ,” he corrects. “I should put you to bed.” 

“Either’d be okay,” Bucky mumbles, because if he can’t say it now, when Steve’s looking at him with such bright eyes, thigh pressed up against his on the couch, and Bucky’s brave with feverish logic, when can he? 

Steve does a little double take, and bites his lip. 

“You sure about that, Buck? Not just the fever talking?”

Sure, it’s the fever talking, but it’s saying what Bucky has wanted to for weeks now. 

“No,” he rasps. “Want you. In bed.”

Steve looks flabbergasted, but there’s a little gleaming hint in his eye that tells Bucky that at least part of Steve wants this too. It’s the same sparkling gleam that Bucky’s noticed when Steve watches him eat, and the feeling that it gives Bucky is like a keyboard smash to the cranium, but in a really good way. 

_ Aljaffljgalksjf _ , Bucky’s brain supplies when Steve’s lips press gently against his, increasing intensity until Bucky has to cough and Steve pulls away to rub his back and smooth his hair some more. 

“What do you say I put you to bed and get you feeling better, so I can take you to bed soon?” Steve mouths at Bucky’s ear, presses a long kiss to his soft jawline. 

“Mmm,” Bucky says, and that’s enough assent for them both.

 

~~~~~

 

Steve is as true as the blue on the American flag to his word, and he plies Bucky with kisses and cough medicine and thick soups, holding him as he sleeps himself to health, grazing his knuckles against Bucky’s side when they’re both shirtless in bed (“Gotta warm you up the old-fashioned way,” Steve had grinned as Bucky’d shivered). 

Steve is also chastely worshipful of Bucky’s new body, at the softness spread around his waist like thick frosting on a cupcake. Make no mistake, though, Steve assures Bucky that as soon as he’s fever free and able to talk in complete sentences without coughing, he’s going to take him to bed and make him feel so, so good. 

“And feed me,” Bucky murmurs sleepily, and Steve blushes pink but doesn't disagree. 

“Mm,” Steve says, and his arm curls more protectively around Bucky’s middle. “And feed you.”

 

~~~~~

 

As soon as Bucky’s fever breaks, that’s just what Steve does. He sits Bucky on a kitchen chair across from him and holds Bucky’s foot in his lap while he peels apples for an apple pie. 

After a relatively non-gluttonous meal of leftover casserole, Steve sits across from Bucky at the kitchen table and looks at him seriously. 

“About that pie,” he says, and Bucky can’t help from grinning until Steve has to come and kiss him, again and again. 

“You want me to eat it in bed?” Bucky asks when they take a little breather, and Steve almost chokes on his own tongue. 

“Do I ever,” he says fervently, and because crutches take too long and are awkward, he just picks Bucky up like he’s a little 1940s wasp-waisted waif (which he certainly is not, mostly thanks to Steve and that sugared thumb of his).

 

~~~~~

 

Eating an entire pie is no joke, Bucky realizes halfway through. He feels grateful that Steve’s feeding it to him in slices, because he’s not sure he could handle what seem like endless forkfuls straight from the tin. 

“Need a little break, Stevie,” he says as Steve is cutting the next slice. “Want you to work on this for a while.” He indicates his rounded gut, and Steve doesn't seem to need any additional encouragement. Steve abandons the pie tin and plated slice on the nightstand and gives Bucky a long, mildly desperate kiss. 

That’s about all it takes for Bucky’s cock to join in this stallion rodeo (well, stallion and horse-let-out-to-pasture, really). Steve grins when he sees Bucky’s obvious excitement, and Bucky chuckles. 

“You wanna work on that too, maybe?” And his only answer is the fervent press of Steve’s hot mouth against his taut belly, and then further down.

 

~~~~~

 

It’s different with Steve than it was with a dame, Bucky thinks--hazy half-memories of tangling his fingers in long blonde hair, closing his eyes and wishing it were someone else. 

Steve’s taking Bucky’s whole length in, using one hand to keep up a circular massage on Bucky’s belly and adding the other hand into his lingual action at intervals with a twisting motion of his wrist that has Bucky moaning. 

Steve takes him all the way up to the point where Bucky is just a constant stream of “oh god yes yes baby Stevie just like that yes yes yes” and then slows it down to a lazy suck, a light flutter of fingertips on his stomach, and then Steve’s leaning over his face, pupils blown wide, whispering, “Wanna make you feel so good, baby, just come for me,” and Bucky nearly does just at the sound of Steve’s voice, ragged with desire. 

He does come moments later, when Steve’s back on him fast and hard, and his vision whites out for a little while, and he feels moisture gathering in the corners of his eyes. 

Bucky lays there for a bit, riding out the shadow of his orgasm, eyes closed until he feels Steve’s thumb in the corner of his eye and he opens them to see Steve, face flushed, lip bitten. 

“You made me cream my pants,” Steve says, and Bucky laughs even as another small tear slips down his cheek. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Steve murmurs, hands running up and down Bucky’s body, lingering where softness has replaced rigidity. Where the excess of Steve’s care has overtaken the sinew that Hydra wrought. 

Steve kisses him again, and then says, “What do you say I go change my pants and then feed you the rest of that pie?”

 

~~~~~

 

Steve feeds Bucky the second half of the pie slowly, with gentle attenuation to every gurgle or wince. 

“Good boy,” Steve says as Bucky swallows the last bite, “so good for me, Buck, so good.”

Bucky’s belly is hugely swollen and he feels at least three-quarters pie, but he’s content. Steve’s nestled up against him in bed, cool hand snuck up under Bucky’s t-shirt to keep up with the belly rub. His stomach hurts, sure, but it’s a pain made from pleasure, from kisses between forkfuls, not of determination and frustration in tangent, making him eat beyond his limits and say things he doesn’t mean. 

This ache is something Bucky desired- because Steve wanted it, partly, yes- but also because something in the way that eating to excess makes him feel really dips the needle over to the pleasure side of the dial. 

“Hey,” Steve says a little later, still skimming his hand in circular motions. “This eating thing. It makes me so happy to feed you, Buck. Make you sit down and take care of you. Know that you’re safe.”

“Mm,” Bucky murmurs, squinting an eye open to look at Steve, all golden ratio in dim light. 

“You know when I knew you’d be okay?” Steve asks, not waiting for an answer. “When I saw all that damn candy in your apartment… I thought to myself, ‘if Bucky’s eating chocolate, he can’t be that bad off.’” 

Bucky chuckles a little bit, then hiccups, and Steve’s hand rubs a little more firmly. 

“You weren’t wrong.” 


End file.
